Delighted to have a guest post from @mclaughlinsoc.bsky.social on The Silver Linings Substack! In his terrific essay, Neil returns to the debate between Parsons and Mills but brings Gouldner into the mix, applying Gouldner's concept of "theoretical nightmares" to "the sociological imagination."

No one talks enthusiastically and profoundly about Parsons anymore? Well, then you should listen to Daniel Silver on Give Theory a Chance: thesocietypages.org/theory/2025/... #sociology #theory #socialtheory #parsons

New essay on the sociology and literary representation of fast food. check it out! If, like me, you have both a soft spot in your heart and belly for fast food, this one is for you. And if you don't, maybe it can help to appreciate how somebody could. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/two-litera...

If you hear the phrase “grand theory” in sociology, more often than not it is to designate something that you are not going to do, or that used to be done in the past. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/on-grand-t...

The imagination has long been considered both essential and dangerous. It is essential because it represents a capacity to make new connections among existing ideas and to propose new ones. It is dangerous for the same reason. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

An essay on the ethics of morally lax environments, from mixed martial arts to social media platforms open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

The world is full of things that could be considered problematic, but only some are actually treated that way. Why? We examine this question in a new paper, studying when some non-native species are discussed as more or less "invasive."

Is influence zero-sum? To a surprising degree, disputes about how to understand the contemporary media ecology come down to this question. One view sees status as inherently zero-sum, and therefore capable of infecting positive-sum domains, such as money.

I was very inspired by Jimmy Alfonso Licon’s Synthetic Socrates, where students debate an AI trained to fiercely defend various philosophical positions. So I thought I’d adapt it to my class on classical sociological theory. The result is Mad Max. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/mad-max-an...

This essay applies some political economy concepts to platforms, which I conceptualize under the heading of “political sociality” and “social capitalism”: the institutionalized instrumentalization of social relations. Aka: staged clout tournaments. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

sethabrutyn.com/2026/04/09/t... #sociology

This is a terrific article, laying out an approach to sociological theory that builds from Hegel's idea of determinate negation and aims to rejuvenate deep engagement with existing theories as a central driver of theoretical creativity. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

A really great substack by the ever-brilliant @dsilver432.bsky.social charting the rise and fall and sometimes rise again of sociological research areas, discourse, and interests. Sadly, I find myself somewhere in that mid-20th century world... thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/sociologys...

Sociology's Evolving Discourse A computational analysis of over a century of sociology journal articles open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Social Media Platforms are Staged Clout Competitions open.substack.com/pub/thesilve... Why do we compete for influence online? A theory of social capitalism.

Artificial Social Intelligence in the Classroom open.substack.com/pub/thesilve... This is the latest post in a series on our experiments in teaching Classical Sociological Theory by way of Artificial Social Intelligence.

I've been enjoying Dan Silver's substack, but this post on avoiding a "sucker sociology" really speaks to me: open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Check out our new paper in American Sociological Review: "Living with Ghosts: How Physical Traces of the Past Shape Cultural Trauma in Chinatowns" The paper is based on research we've done on efforts to preserve and protect historic Chinatowns in Canada and the United States doi.org/10.1177/0003...

Another excellent read here for those who teach #sociological theory or are interested in simplifying how certain perspectives work

thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/marriage-a... In my previous post on Social Constructionism, I examined how failing to adopt a constructionist perspective feeds into “sucker sociology”: taking the rationales offered by interested actors at face value.

The Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World is maybe one of the most famous diagrams in the history of social science. Did you ever wonder where the regions come from? Or why they have that blobby shape? open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Knowledge work now often begins with a blank screen and helpful AI assistants. Whatever else that does, it will make the post industrial workplace into the stuff of nostalgia, sort of like those farms where you can go pick apples to experience agricultural labor . open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

The Chicago School of Sociology was a School of Sociology substack.com/home/post/p-... In which I argue that it’s crucial to understand the Chicago School's urban research as a subset of its broader sociological project, which is an attempt at applied pragmatist philosophy.

Apply to this year’s Public Thinking Workshops by Friday March 6! The Good Life will be taught by philosophers and Point editors Anastasia Berg and Joseph Keegin, and Questions Concerning Technology will be taught by Point founding editor Jon Baskin and me. www.publicthinking.thepointmag.com/apply

Social Capitalist Ethics III: The Disembedding of Sociality from Society open.substack.com/pub/thesilve... How are social media platforms like used car dealers? This post answers that question, and more. I first briefly review my first two posts in this series.

This post summarizes results from using Codex to analyze a dataset of NEA project reports from its Our Town program. Our Town is a place-based initiative that supports arts groups to work with various civic organizations to enhance local community vitality. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

This post examines romanticism from a sociological perspective. In this point of view, romanticism is a perennial possibility because all societies experience strain and tension. substack.com/home/post/p-...

What do the Protestant Ethic and the Ethic of Authenticity have in common? Both are disciplining, internally and externally. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Soc Theory Nerds should check out @dsilver432.bsky.social's always illuminating Substack. The most recent missive, on "The Iron Cage of Authenticity" is fun into Tay Tay's philosophy (Charles Taylor, of course. Did you think Taylor Swift?). thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/the-iron-c...

A Sandbox for Artificial Social Intelligence open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

In this post, I articulate two invitations to sociology. One is predominant, represented by Pierre Bourdieu. The other is a persistent undercurrent and can be usefully formulated via a look at Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Another excellent piece from a sociologist I truly admire. As one of "those" in the Parsons camp, this essay spoke volumes to me. But, its value is in its attempt at transcending the (very) small contemporary pro-Parsons faction in the field. Erudite and insightful...check it out.

This essay responds to Joseph Heath’s recent post on social construction and the “sick role.” It offers three comments on Talcott Parsons. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

What would happen if John Rawls ran into Nietzsche’s demon while shopping at a grocery store for breakfast cereal? I try to answer that question with a little parable that tells us something about the problem of existential meaning and aesthetics for liberalism. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

So ends an era of ASA’s public facing journal as @contexts.org officially leaves print behind and moves completely online. I've somehow spent 1/3 of my life w/ @contexts.org starting on the grad board under the leadership of @chrisuggen.bsky.social, Douglas Hartmann, and @lettapage.bsky.social

In this post I discuss the logic of functionalist explanation and argue we should not be afraid to use it, when appropriate. Bonus points if you can recognize the image and see the connection! open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

A Market-Failure Approach to Platform Ethics. The first in a series of posts on why social media is a staged competition for influence, and how to decide what counts as fair play. #sociology #platforms open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Here is a draft of my syllabus for a seminar on Artificial Social Intelligence. The goal is to return to and build upon some ideas from classical sociology in which mind, intelligence, and knowledge have a constitutively social dimension. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/my-syllabu...

Why has so much contemporary social theory come to feel so empty? This essay argues that part of the answer lies in sociology’s implicit embrace of aspects of Kantian formalism. thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/tarrying-w...

@sethabrutyn.bsky.social wrote this thread about 6 months ago, about a post contrasting classics vs model based fields. Down-thread, Seth notes that he doesn't care about Hegel or Kant. I promised a post articulating why I think he should. Here it is! thesilverlining3.substack.com/p/tarrying-w...

Designing experiments in classical social theory III. Welcome to the hidden abode of production. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

An essay on the creativity of social conflict, from 1950s PTA meetings to 21st century social media flame wars. open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Populism: a sociological perspective open.substack.com/pub/thesilve... This piece tries to bring a sociological perspective to the discussion of populism, building on Heath’s provocative essay and Dan Williams’ critical notes on grounding a theory of populism in dual process psychology.

True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the useful things will get studied without the aid of scientific men.

What would Plato Do? On LLMs, writing, and thinking. #Sociology #AI open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...

Towards a sociological theory of the LLM open.substack.com/pub/thesilve...